10 Habits to Drop if You Want to Be Successful

Lately, I have set a lot of goals for myself and am starting to realize that some of habits need to change or be dropped completely if I want to be successful. I have compiled a list of 10 bad habits that you may want to drop if you are trying to be successful in working towards your goals.

Sitting down after getting home from work

I am sure we have all experienced the feeling of mental or physical exhaustion upon getting home from work. I definitely have. A few years ago, one of my co-workers informed me they made it a habit to not sit down until at least 2 hours after work. Why you ask? So that you can be productive, stay active, and sleep better when you go to bed. She utilized these 2 hours to spend time with her kids, make dinner, clean the house, work on school, etc. She also reasoned that once she sat down, she typically didn’t get back up. I analyzed my personal habits and I was in agreement with her. Imagine what you could accomplish with an extra 2 hours, 5 days a week!

Procrastination

If you are anything like I was in college, I would not accomplish anything until the absolute last minute. In college, I spent many nights staying up drinking Monster Energy drinks working on a paper due at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. This is bad. Over the years I learned to stop procrastinating. (For the most part). I still have my struggles, but what I found was that it caused me so much less stress and worry, and really helped me plan and utilize my time more efficiently.

Impulse Buying

I’m sure we have all been told how important having a budget is. But what is even more important, is sticking to that budget. Now this was something I was really bad at all through high school, college, and early 20’s. Once I graduated college I always had a budget and did pretty well with it, but looking back I always think about how much less debt I would be in if I had really focused on sticking with a necessities only budget early on and paying down my student loans as quickly as possible. Impulse buying can keep you from your financial goals and could cause problems for you later down the road when you need to make a big purchase such as a car, or a house.

Becoming Complacent

This is something that is very easy to do because it is something that requires balance. One of the biggest ways we stop working towards success is to become satisfied with what we have. Now, this is not to say we should not be grateful and enjoy everything we already do have. Instead, we need to look at this as these are my goals how do I get there? Then once you meet your initial goals, you should set new ones and just keep pushing forward. These don’t even have to be financial goals, but we should always be working towards something even if we are happy with where our lives are at.

Not Setting Goals

This ties in really well with #4. Not setting goals for yourself will mean that you may never move forward. I have friends who did not set career goals for themselves and were offered opportunities along the way, but they weren’t planned. So it is important to remember that goal setting will allow you to visualize where you headed, what you would like your future to look like, and will help you figure out a way to get there.

Not Saving or Investing

One of my biggest regrets is not investing or saving when I had the opportunity as a teenager. I worked around 30 hours every week my junior and senior years of high school as a waitress in a restaurant. I realize now that I made entirely too much money at that age, because I didn’t know what to do with it. Keep in mind, I was making about $1,200.00 a month while I was still in high school. I spent almost all of that on clothes, movies, food, paying off my car, and hanging out with friends. If I had instead saved that money, I could have paid $28,800.00 towards my college education and saved myself even more than that in student loans. If I had invested that money in an IRA and didn’t touch that money until retirement, I could have retired a millionaire and never had to have invested another penny.

Being Negative

I use to be a very negative person. I figured out this was because I was really disappointed in how my life turned out, how much debt was in, etc. Once I started to actually take action towards changing the things I was unhappy about, I became a much happier and productive person. I also found that people wanted to be around me more often. So, cutting the negativity from my life allowed me to enhance my relationships with those around me, and improve my circumstances and outlook on life.

Caring About What Other People Think

Thinking back to my teenage and college years, I realize I made the majority of my decisions solely on how I thought other people wanted me to think, or act. One of the reasons I worked basically a full time job as a high school student was because it gave me an excuse if I did not have any weekend plans with friends. I spent so much time trying to please everyone around me and caring about how others viewed me, that it took away from who I was and what decisions I would have made if I hadn’t been so influenced by others.

Making Excuses

I am sure that we could all provide 100 different reasons as to why we didn’t do something the day before. Just stop! All you are doing when you make excuses is allowing you to not do anything. I mean, you could just say “I’m tired” and literally do nothing but watch television on the couch all day long. This does not allow you to meet any goals you have set for yourself, nor does it help you move forward in any way.

Saying No to Opportunities

It’s truly mind-boggling how many opportunities I either started finding or were presented to me once I decided to stop saying no. I hear the same thing all the time from other people. I think this is more of a mindset change because once you decide that you want to change your life, and that you are willing to do what it takes to make it happen, you find ways to do so.

I hope you find these tips helpful and can start implementing them in your life. What are some habits that you are trying to change? Feel free to share below!